Paraesthesia: .NET Development and Some Pictures of My Cat

iTunes Sharing options

Being the Family Tech Support Guy, I got a question from my cousin about
sharing music in iTunes and rather than answer it in email (since it’s
not a short answer), I figured I’d blog it since it is probably helpful
to other folks out there.

First, you need to determine your requirements. The phrase “sharing
music in iTunes” is actually pretty vague. Let’s walk through figuring
out what you want to do.

Do you have multiple computers?This is important because you’ll
need to make some choices about what you want to do on each of the
computers.

If you have multiple computers and you want your entire iTunes
library (playlists and music files) accessible from each
computer… You have a couple of choices.

Copy everything to each computer over the network. This will
put a physical copy of the iTunes library and all of the
music files on every computer you want to share with. You’ll
need to use a program like
SyncToy
or Allway Sync to keep your iTunes
library and music files copied over the network. Honestly, I
don’t recommend this option.

2. If you have multiple computers and you want to manage iTunes on
one computer and just listen from the other computers… the
easiest solution is to use iTunes library sharing to enable
sharing on the master computer and then attach to that shared
library over the network from the other computers. You will be
able to listen to the music but will only be able to synchronize
devices from the master computer. There’s a decent [tutorial
about how to set up iTunes library sharing on
About.com](http://ipod.about.com/od/itunesbasics/ss/itunes_sharing.htm).
3. If you have multiple computers and only run iTunes on one but
need the music files on all of them (for whatever reason), you
can store the music files on the network, no problem.
[Lifehacker has a tutorial on how to do
that](http://lifehacker.com/230605/hack-attack-share-your-itunes-music-library-over-your-home-network),
just skip the bits where you set up something to synchronize the
iTunes library file. At the time of this writing, that’s steps 6
and 7 on the tutorial that you can skip.
4. If you don’t have multiple computers… continue on. Nothing to
see here.

Do you have multiple user accounts? That is, when you sit down
at your computer, do you “log in” as you or does everyone just sit
down and start using the computer?

Share your music files. Each iTunes library will use the
same set of music files. This may be problematic because
when you change certain things in iTunes (like the
artist name or the song name), iTunes will actually
modify the physical file and may even move it to a new
location (if you’ve told iTunes to keep your library
organized). That will mess up other libraries that
assume the files stay in the same location.

Keep separate copies of your music files. This could eat
up space really quickly, but hard drives are cheap.
Doing this would mean that each time you add a file into
one library, you need to create another copy of the same
file and add the copy into the other library.

2. If everyone has a different account, things open up.
- Share your iTunes library and music files across user
accounts. There is [an Apple knowledge base article that
explains how to do
this](http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1203). [I have a
tutorial on this as
well](/archive/2005/04/10/multi-user-itunes.aspx) and while
it’s a little more lengthy, it’s my preferred way.
- Each user has their own iTunes library but shares music
files. The key here is that each user will fire up iTunes
and create a new library – making sure the “Keep iTunes
music files organized” option is the same for each user –
and pointing each iTunes library to the same central
location for music files (Edit –\> Preferences –\> Advanced
and change the music folder location to the same place for
each user). When you add a music file to one library, each
other user will need to manually add the file to their
library as well. Or not, as the case may be. Note, again,
that if someone changes an artist name, song name, etc., it
may move the files out from under someone else, so this may
not be great.
- Each user has their own iTunes library and their own music
files. This is how it works by default when you have
multiple user accounts. If someone adds music to their
library, the other person can make a copy and add it
separately, later, to their own library.

Things to think about…

You can mix and match. For example, if you want to keep your
music on the network because you have multiple computers and you
want to share iTunes across multiple user accounts on those
computers, you can do that. It’ll take some work to figure out which
parts of the various tutorials out there need to be fixed up, but
it’s possible.

You will probably run into issues with iTunes Store purchased
music and apps. As soon as you get into music sharing that
involves copying things around, separate libraries, etc., you will
most likely start running into problems where one user can play
purchased music but another can’t. This is technically by design –
one person purchases music and that person owns the music. That’s
the problem with DRM (digital rights management) today. Other
sources like Amazon MP3 don’t cause this problem because they don’t
have DRM.

Have a backup plan. When you switch this stuff around, you have
a chance of accidentally hosing things up. Make sure you back things
up before you do anything.

Take your time. Especially if you’re a non-technical person,
some of the stuff explained in the above tutorials may be a bit
daunting. It’s not too hard, but it’s not fall-down easy, either.
Set aside some dedicated time to work on this and if it becomes too
much, take a break. Write down all the stuff you’re doing so if you
have to undo it (or restore from backup, or ask someone for help –
NOT ME), you can.

As always, all of this is AT YOUR OWN RISK and SELF-SUPPORTED. I
haven’t actually tried every combination of all of these things so I
can’t guarantee all of it works.IF IT DOESN’T WORK, YOU’RE ON YOUR
OWN. I can’t offer you individual help on this. Sorry.